


At Old Tom's Place

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Stand - Stephen King
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1636661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through the years, friendship and loyalty remain unchanged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Old Tom's Place

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks, as always, to the wonderful Josan.
> 
> Written for Flyakate

 

 

Charlie sank down into the overstuffed couch with a sigh of relief. She'd been walking all day, sight-seeing, and she was still getting used to the mountain air. She accepted a steaming cup with a grateful smile for her host, feeling the heat seep quickly through the thin porcelain into her chilled fingers.

She looked into the cup, took a deep whiff of the steam wafting from it, and smiled. She'd just been handed hot chocolate in an exquisitely fine bone china cup. She looked at her companion, who smiled back and shrugged slightly. Apparently, this sort of thing was only to be expected, here.

She shouldn't have felt surprised, she supposed. Even if she hadn't grown up hearing stories about the strange old man, she would know just by the look of his house, filled to the brim with all manner of wondrous and grotesque objects, that he was something special.

Leo settled down beside her, almost touching her, though the couch was a long one. She pretended not to notice their closeness, but she felt a slight thrill run through her. She'd only known him for a few days, though she'd been told stories about him, too. About all of them, the founders of Freemantle, Colorado (which had once been known as Boulder). About the man on the couch beside her, who'd been only a boy back then; about the man who was sitting down in the armchair across from them, who was all but a boy still.

About who had died and who had survived. Just being here, seeing it all for herself, made her think about her father's soft drawl, her mother's eyes which still filled with tears sometimes when she spoke about this place, even so many years later.

She realized that, as she was losing herself in memories, two pairs of eyes had settled on her. She smiled and lifter her cup to toast her host.

"Thank you, Mr. Cullen."

The old man chuckled. "I'm not Mr. Cullen, laws no. I'm just old Tom."

"Tom," said Leo, softly. "This is Charlie. Remember, I told you I was going to bring her here to meet you."

Tom's bright eyes were fixed on her. "Glad to meet you, Charlie." Then he grinned. "That's funny--you have a boy's name."

"Actually," she said, "it's a nickname. My real name is Carla. Carla Rebecca Redman."

She was surprised, then, and a little alarmed to see Tom's face go suddenly blank. She looked at Leo, who just shook his head and placed a hand lightly on her arm. She felt her skin there tingle, just a bit.

As quickly as it had happened, Tom's spell of whatever-it-was was over. Life returned to his eyes and they lit up with joy.

"Redman? You mean, like Stu Redman?"

Charlie couldn't help but grin back. "Yes. Stu Redman is my father."

"And your momma? Is Fran your momma?"

"That's right."

"Well," Tom exclaimed gleefully. "I sure am glad to meet you!" He jumped up from his chair and gripped her hand, shaking it wildly. She hastily set aside her cup before she spilled hot chocolate all over her lap.

"I'm glad to meet you, too, Tom," she said, and he settled down again, his eyes never leaving her face.

"Old Stu. He was my best friend, you know! After Nicky, that is."

"I know," she said. "He told me all about it, how you saved his life and brought him home from... from the west."

Tom shook his head. "Old Stu," he said again. "He saved my life just as much. And he's the one who brought _me_ home. Tom never would have found his way through all that snow, laws no!"

"Well, I want to thank you, anyway," she said firmly. 

Tom waved off the thanks. "Did your daddy ever tell you about the avalanches, and the movies we watched in the hotel, and..."

Her father had indeed told her all about it, many times, and she'd never gotten tired of hearing about it. She wasn't tired of it now, either, and she let Tom go over those old stories to his heart's content. She sipped her hot chocolate and stole occasional glances at Leo, who looked just as interested, though he certainly must have heard the stories many times himself. He was good with this old man. She loved him a little, for that.

Her eyes wandered around the room, taking in the cornucopia of stuffed animals surrounding them. Through one doorway was the kitchen where Tom had made their drinks. Through the other was what looked like a study, with the strangest wallpaper Charlie had ever seen. When Tom's story-telling had died down, she asked, curious, "What's in there?"

"There?" asked Tom, looking around. Then his eyes brightened. "That's Nick's room."

"This you've got to see," murmured Leo.

She knew who Nick Andros was, of course. Her parents had told her all about the young deaf-mute man who'd been so instrumental in creating the post-plague society. Her father had mentioned once or twice that Tom sometimes talked about Nick as though the man hadn't died. Given the closeness between Tom and Nick, that wasn't surprising. Though for Tom to have kept up that loyalty to his friend after so long a time was astounding. For him to have kept an entire room sacred to Nick....

"May I see it?" she asked.

"Sure!" Tom exclaimed, jumping to his feet and heading for the other room. She followed, Leo close behind her.

She stopped in the doorway, though, gaping in amazement. What she'd taken for wallpaper was, in fact, hand-written notes. Hundreds of them, plastered around the walls with no apparent rhyme or reason. Some on full-sized pieces of paper, some on scraps, a couple even on paper napkins. Some in pen and some in pencil, but all of them in the same scrawl.

Awe-struck, she walked over to the nearest wall and began to read. It was hard to make sense of the words; they were mostly short notes, reminders, random doodles of thoughts and ideas. 

_Ask Glen to go over the fish theory again._   
It all comes down to power. Electrical power. Political power. Can we learn to live without either again?   
Currency. Barter. Does Glen have any ideas? Of course he does   
God, I miss jelly beans

That last made her smile. She'd tasted a jelly bean once. Her mother had found a bag of them in the grocery store near their home in Castle Rock and had given a handful each to Charlie and her brother. Peter had liked them, but Charlie had thought they tasted stale and much too sweet. She'd made a face, and Fran had smiled, then sighed, and put the bag away. 

Then next wall seemed to be filled with Nick's half of conversations. She could follow the thread of most of these, and it amazed her to be reading what was essentially a recording of words 'spoken' so many years before.

 _Finally, some good news. Did he say when it'd be ready?_   
That soon?   
They'll be damned glad to hear it. I certainly am.

She felt a chill run through her as she read another, further over.

 _No. I don't want Lauder anywhere near the committee._   
I don't care, Larry. I'll go to Mother A. over this, if I have to.   
Yeah, that's it exactly. I can't put my finger on it, either, but Fran's right. He's just. It just feels wrong.   
Thank you.

And the last one made her eyes fill with tears.

 _I'm sorry Fran. I'll come back._   
You're welcome, but it's just Kleenex. I've got a whole box of them.   
I think I can guess. But Dick says it's way too early to tell. And every case is different, you know that.   
We don't know if it's still in the air, or incubating, or whatever happens to viruses. You're immune. Even if the father   
All right. Yes. Even if Jesse wasn't, your little guy still has half a chance.   
It has to be enough, Frannie. That's all any of us have ever had, and we're here, aren't we?

Charlie reached out and let her finger trail slowly over that one. The words of a dead man talking to her mother a lifetime ago.

She looked around for Tom, but he'd disappeared. She could hear him rustling around in the kitchen. 

"Where did he get these?" she asked Leo. "I thought all of Nick's things got destroyed in the explosion."

Leo shrugged. "Turns out Tom picked up scraps whenever he could. And lots of people had them, too; bits of conversations they'd had with Tom, notes Nick had thrown away. After Stu and Fran left, Tom got pretty lonely. So everyone got together and gave him everything they still had of Nick's." He shook his head. "The sad thing is, he's never been able to read any of them. And he won't let us read them to him."

She frowned. "Did you guys help him put them up?"

"No, he did that all by himself."

"But they're organized in categories. How on Earth did he know where each one went, if..." She trailed off, looking with wonder towards the kitchen door.

"Not the strangest thing that's ever happened here," said Leo. 

"I suppose not."

On the third wall, she found longer passages. Quotations, monologues. Descriptions of dreams. These, she almost skipped over; it seemed, suddenly, like too intimate a thing to read. Like reading someone's diary. But her eyes kept being drawn back to them.

_I find, now, that I've started dreaming again. But not about HIM or HER. Pleasant, restful dreams. About Rudy, sometimes, giving me hell. Teaching me to read and write and think._

  
Last night, I dreamed about Shoyo. The plague never happened; Ray and the others went to jail, real jail, with more than a deafdumb deputy looking after them. Sheriff Baker kept me on, let me stay in one place for more than a week or two. I had my own house. A wife and kids. And, because it was a dream, Tom living in the basement, with his toy garage and cars.   
M-o-o-n, that spells dream.

The last wall held more prosaic things; lists, cryptic one-word messages (one simply said _THEOCRACY_ , underlined and circled in red). By the time she'd read them all, Tom was back, standing in the doorway, watching her.

Suddenly, he said, "Are there any elephants, where you come from?"

"No," she replied, bemused. "I've never seen one."

"Tom hasn't seen the elephant in a long time. Thought maybe Stu showed one to you."

"Only pictures," she said. She looked at Leo, who seemed equally mystified.

When she looked back at Tom, he seemed his old self again. "I sure am glad to see you," he said. "Are you going to be staying in town?"

"For a while," she said, this time not looking at Leo. She thought that if she did, he'd be able to see more in her eyes than she wanted him to, for the moment. She thought she might stay for more than a while. Peter was in Nebraska with his partner. The twins were back in Maine with their parents. But Charlie had felt some urge pulling her to Colorado. 

"Will you come back and see old Tom?"

"Of course," she said firmly. 

"We're going to go up Mount Bateman tomorrow," added Leo. "But we'll be back in the afternoon, if you want to come over and have supper with us."

"Tom'd like that," the old man said happily. Charlie, with a sudden impulse, went to him and hugged him, hard, dropping a soft kiss on his weather-beaten cheek, and drew back to see him beaming at her.

"Laws yes, I'd like that," he said.

They said their good-byes, and Charlie followed Leo back out into the cool evening air. They paused at the end of the walk and looked back at the house. What had seemed in daylight to be an amusing arrangement of lawn ornaments now cast eerie shadows in the twilight. But a light shone brightly through the open door, and Tom's silhouette was waving happily at them. They waved back. Then, as they turned to go, Charlie reached out and took Leo's hand.

 


End file.
